word is sort of a comic: as One Off is an outlet for jokes that pop into my head, so is word for poems; I usually get more poems popping than jokes, so word will probably outgrow One Off some day. Older, text poems of mine can be found here and then here.

I also enjoy scouring the web for nifty free fonts, dafont.com being my favorite free-font-searching spot. Each little -word- poem will use a different free font--and these are entirely free fonts, not ones that are just "free for personal use" or whatnot.

Unlike most of my other comics, -word- is made at screen resolution, so prints ordered off the site aren't any higher resolution than what you could print yourself. But they're printed on glossy 8.5"x11" cardstock by an industrial-sized printer and signed by me in shiny ink, so yay! Also, I will take off the font info and URL at the bottom, but you can specify on the order form if you want them kept on.

A two-man effort, one writing a haiku, and another drawing pictures to accompany it, sometimes unpredictably. Mostly zombie-themed and the like. Kind of morbid, some adult bits, but really high quality stuff all in all.

Not for naught did he naughty seemGod's love was the manciple's dreamFor vision divine she'd duly dieBacchus sewn in Jupiter's thigh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Came across the bizarre story of Bacchus' birth in a footnote in the Penguin edition of Spenser's The Faerie Queene. His mother, Semele, died after seeing Zeus in his real lightning-blasting form--Hera tricked her into asking him to do that--so Zeus took their unborn child, who would become the god Bacchus (aka Dionysus), and carried him to term inside his thigh. :o

The romance came up in Faerie Queene as part of a long list of kinky mythological love stories--Zeus was in the form of an eagle when he became enamored with Semele--leading up to "The Masque of Cupid" in book 3, which is a moral allegory on chastity. "Manciple" is a nifty old word Spenser used elsewhere in the poem; it was the starting point of this poem (oh no wait, first the not-naught-naughty thing popped into my head), which then added on the thigh-sewing thing that I guess had left an impression on me, and somehow gradually became a poem about Semele--who ended up fitting nicely into the "manciple" role, since she was a priestess of Zeus (Jupiter/Jove etc). Ah serendipity.

I squeezed the letters divided by apostrophe's a little closer together; by default they come out pretty widely spaced in Clarisse~.

Sat Dec 05, 2009 4:32 am

BC

Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2009 4:18 pmPosts: 4325

RMHN

Your diction is marvelousThat much appears obviousBut are you a noviceOr more of a novelist?

To whit, this rather augustClub of members yet modestConsiders you for the officeOf Resident Master Hob-Nobbist.

Should your elocution prove flawlessThen with a pleasure full honestI shall give you the fondestWelcome to our fair populace.